The New Dark Age

3 June 2021 — Socialist Project – The Bullet

by Christoph Hermann

When it was first published in German in 2017, Ulrich Brand’s and Markus Wissen’s book The Imperial Mode of Living attracted widespread attention and was discussed in mainstream media, while, at the same time, fueling an intense debate within the German academic left. The multiple reactions were not by chance; they were the result of the provocative and innovative nature of the book. The authors claim that the dominant mode of living in the Global North, to a large extent, depends on the exploitation of people and natural resources in the Global South. Or put differently, the fact that we (as inhabitants of the Global North) can enjoy a relatively comfortable standard of living is based on a long history of the depletion of nature and the preservation of poor working conditions in other parts of the world.

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